Nowhere Girl (37 page)

“Oh,” she said lightly. “I decided not to do it.”

“What?”

The table got quiet. I felt my heart lift; I was so relieved I could hardly breathe.

“I don't know,” she said. She was smiling so grandly I thought she was going to tell me she had won the lottery. “I feel like, you know, it's dangerous.” She took a piece of brownie from the plate she was sharing with David. “And there are other things I want to be doing with my time.” She glanced at my brother, who was chewing as if he'd never tasted anything that delicious before in his life.

“Well, that's great,” I said. “I mean, as long as you're happy.”

Odion and Chandler were busying themselves with Madelyn, offering her juice in a sippy cup.

“It's still sort of surprising,” I said. But no one except me seemed shocked.

“Now.” Odion stood. “Now I am ready.”

Chandler handed him the envelope, and he opened it with his eyes closed. He pulled out the letter and opened his eyes, and as he read, his face went blank.

“Shit,” Chandler whispered. Then louder, “Hon, what does it say?”

Odion began saying the Pledge of Allegiance. We all tried to clap when he was done, but then, before we could get the applause out, he put his hand on his heart and started singing “My Country, 'Tis of Thee,” his tenor voice so gorgeous the whole restaurant went silent. Even Sassafrass quit clinking dishes in back. I felt myself starting to cry, and when I looked over at Gabby, she had tears running down her face. So did Chandler, and so, to my astonishment, did David. Only Madelyn was smiling happily as if she'd made the song up herself. By the time he finished, our whole table got up and clapped and hugged him, and then I saw that everyone else was clapping too.

 

CHAPTER

43

After I left Cookies, with the book done and Greg still away, I had nothing to do and nowhere to be. I thought about going to the prison to get one more sit-down with Larry Cauchek, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. I got in my car and started to head home, but I decided I had to talk to my friends and family one by one. I knew none of them had killed Savannah. Now I needed each of them to tell me. I stopped at a convenience store and grabbed a few things I'd run out of over the weeks, mainly toilet paper and toothpaste.

I called Gabby on my way to her house. “I'm coming over,” I told her answering machine. I was shaking with nerves. “There are a couple of things I need to talk to you about.”

There was only one, but I thought it sounded less ominous. When I turned onto her street, I saw her motorcycle and little MG parked side by side in the driveway behind David's Honda. He was probably changing a lightbulb or the AC filter. Gabby was not handy when it came to her house, which struck me as odd since she was normally so self-sufficient. I took the stairs two at a time and knocked quickly before bursting into her place. She wasn't in the living room, but I heard her laugh down the hallway and I half ran there, calling her name.

She said something back, or I thought she did, but I couldn't hear what, and when I saw her bedroom door ajar, I went right in. And there she was, stark naked, lying beside my brother, her head on his chest like this was the most normal thing in the world, and he had his arm around her. Milky Chance was playing on the radio, and there were panties and boxers on the floor. As soon as she saw me, she bolted up.

“Cady!”

David was frantically trying to cover himself up.

“What the fuck.” I looked from him to her and back again. “You two are sleeping together?”

“Well,” David started, “it's a lot more than that.”

“We've been wanting to tell you,” Gabby said, bringing the sheet up to her chin as if I hadn't seen her naked a million times before. “But you've been on the binge, and we want you to be happy for us, because we love you so much—”

“And we love each other,” David added, still trying to get the sheet from the bottom of the bed around him without showing me his ass.

“You guys are together?” I ran my hand through my hair. I couldn't quite believe it. I thought I was having one of those weird, delirious dreams I had while I was binge writing. “What happened to the Minnesota girl?”

“That was one dinner months ago,” David said. “I've been in love with Gabby forever. Even while I was with Emma.”

“We couldn't stop thinking about each other,” Gabby said. “And when we wanted to tell you, you holed yourself up finishing your book.”

I started backing out the door.

“Don't go!” Gabby jumped up with the sheet over her. “We adore you, Cady. We want it to be a good thing. We can all be together, you know, like a family.”

“I'm happy for you,” I told them. “I really am, but I have a lot of shit going on in my head, and I'd really rather not work it out while you two are naked.”

Gabby jumped off the bed and tried to stop me.

“Please,” I said. I didn't want to say that I couldn't let go of what she'd written in a notebook almost twenty years before. “I'll be back later, okay? I'll call you guys tomorrow.” I started out the doorway and then turned to them. “I'm thrilled for you two. I really am. Love you both so much.” And then I was backing out of the bedroom, running down the hall and out the door. And I realized that I was jealous, not because they were together and seemed so happy but now they had true love like Savannah had had, and where was mine?

 

CHAPTER

44

When I got home from Gabby's, I called Brady and told him I'd been held hostage by my book but that I wanted to see him. Maybe he could help me understand what Gabby had written and all the terrible things Emma had said to me. I slipped in that Greg was away, so anytime the next day was fine. I waited while I ate dinner and watched the news and took a shower, and then he called. He said he could meet me at my house at one thirty. I thought I should ask how Colette was doing, but I didn't want to bring it up if he wasn't ready to talk about it, so I hung up without saying a thing.

I was reading in bed when I heard a noise. Putting down my book, I listened. I heard it again, and I felt myself go completely stiff. When it happened a third time, my heart started beating hard. I kicked off the covers and went through the halls with a gigantic cop flashlight I kept under the bed.

Our house was alarmed. The man who installed it said it could never be tripped, because it was on a complicated sensor system that ran underground. It cost a fortune to dig, but it was the only way I agreed to buy the house. I knew I shouldn't be afraid since it was the kind of alarm places like the White House used. In the living room, I found the culprit. A maple branch had lost one of its limbs; it had broken but never dropped, and it was brushing against one of the windows in the wind. As I stood about to draw the blinds, I caught sight of myself in the black reflection of the glass. What surprised me most was that for one quick instant, I thought I saw Savannah. It didn't look porky enough to be me. Or maybe the fat me was a product of my imagination. I found myself suddenly not able to stand, and I sat down in front of the window, hardly able to breathe. It scared me to think I didn't have my weight around me, my scar tissue, Greg had once called it. It was what had kept me safe and insulated all these years after Savannah's murder.

And then, I can't say why, I picked up the phone and scrolled through the numbers until I found Dr. Mirando's. He picked up on the second ring.

“Dr. Mirando?” I said.

“How are you, Cady?”

“I count,” I told him as if we'd never finished our conversation. I wondered what he was doing in the office or if his patient calls were wired to his home and if I had woken his wife. Or maybe my fantasy about him was wrong. Maybe there was no wife. “I count the days since she was murdered.” Dr. Mirando didn't ask me who I was talking about, and it occurred to me he was well aware of my story. “I count, and I write about what I know. I've sold a boatload of books, but I never wanted it. It was just a way to get through the days without her. Like the counting.” I was running at the mouth, like I always did with him, and I realized maybe that's what made him a good therapist. “But I made a good living off the books, and I feel so guilty about it. I had no interest in writing anything after
Alibi
, but Greg encouraged me to. He called it my therapy. That's what he does; he tells me things are good for me because they're really good for him.” I could hear Greg as if he were in the room using that same soothing shrink tone he probably used with patients. “I mean, it's not his fault, I know that. It's—” I could feel the tightening in my chest, and it was getting harder to breathe. “Every single thing I've done since she was killed is because of her. Living in Stanwich, marrying Greg, staying fat … I don't really know what's me, and I need to find out,” I said. “I really have to get on with my life.”

Dr. Mirando was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “What would that mean, Cady, getting on with your life?”

“I don't know. That's the point. I don't know what I am without counting the days and writing about all these innocent people getting killed.”

He didn't answer, but I could hear him breathing. “Okay,” he said. “Let's go with it a moment. Let's say you are here on earth to do Savannah's bidding, even in her death. What do you think she'd want you to do?”

I stared at myself in the strange mirror of that black window. “I think she'd want me to let go,” I said, and I felt a sob in my throat. “I don't think she'd want me to hang on anymore.” And then I cried and cried. It was a different cry from the one with Patrick at the orchard. It was a cry for help, it was a cry for forgiveness, it was a cry to my sister to please help me find a way out of this murderous labyrinth.

 

CHAPTER

45

I spent the morning cleaning and going through the mail, doing all the things I'd ignored while the binge had taken over my life. By the time I was done, I needed some dark chocolate and mindless TV. And then I remembered Brady was coming. I felt a little sick to my stomach from fatigue, but I also had that high school crush butterfly feeling, and I made a salad in case he hadn't had lunch yet. I'd taken a pair of shears and had gone out to the garden to cut flowers so I could make an arrangement for the dining room, and the house smelled sweet, like roses and peonies.

Brady got there as I was dozing off on the couch. He was carrying a bunch of daylillies wrapped in wet tissue paper, which was amazing since he'd roared up on his motorcycle. I took the flowers from him and gave him a quick hug.

“Shit,” I said, “it feels like a million years since I've seen you.”

He followed me into the house and waited in the kitchen while I got a vase from the pantry. “Have you gone on the lam? Where've you been?”

I sighed loudly. “You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.” He went to the refrigerator and took out two beers. He flipped the tops off and handed me one. “Let's sit down, and you can tell me your troubles.”

“Thanks.” I kicked off my flip-flops, and we sat on opposite ends of the ugly white couch. “I don't even know where to start.” As I was thinking about everything that had happened in the last couple of weeks, I realized I hadn't told Brady about Patrick reopening the case or what Gabby and I had found in the storage locker.

“How about at the beginning,” he said.

I barked a laugh. “On a cold November day in 1998, my sister was murdered.”

“What?” He sounded more panicked than confused.

“You said start at the beginning. There it is.”

He put the back of his hand to my forehead. “Are you feeling okay? I'm having a hard time following you.”

I shook my head as if to clear it. “I'm sorry. I know I'm not making sense, but nothing makes sense right now. One of the cops who investigated Savannah's murder showed up at my house a couple of months ago to tell me he's reopening her case. And he asked to borrow the guest book from her funeral so he can start reinterviewing people. So while Gabby and I were at my parents' storage unit looking for it, we found Savannah's old diaries.” I stopped long enough to take a long sip of my beer. “Diaries, mind you, she never even told me she kept. And guess what we found?” But I didn't wait for him to answer. “She had a boyfriend. My sister was madly in love, apparently, with the greatest guy in the world and never even told me. What the fuck is that about?”

He stopped with the bottle almost to his lips. “Really?” he asked. “She loved him?”

“Seriously? I tell you that my dead sister's case is getting reopened and that she had a secret boyfriend who was probably married, and the only thing you find odd is that she loved the guy? I bet you it was Mr. Fitz.”

He set his beer on the table without a coaster. I was sure Greg, wherever he was, could feel it. “The physics teacher? What makes you say that?”

“Two things: she never named him by name, and more importantly, she never told me about him. He must have been someone off limits. Like a teacher or an old married guy.”

He reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “Wow. No wonder you've gone underground. That's a lot to deal with.”

“Oh, that's not even the half of it. While Gabby and I were looking for the guest book, I found an old slam book that she and I kept. I read it when I got home and found all these entries about how much Gabby hated Savannah. Called her stuck-up and bitchy and a slut.” Brady winced. “And then, to top it all off, I went back to see that lunatic Cauchek even though you wouldn't return my calls, and he told me that nothing is ever as it seems.” I had a flash of one of my meetings with the hypnotist, Dr. Corcores, and how he told me we have to push past what is easy to see the truth. “I don't even know what that means.”